Synthetic Agent dimension for Enterprise Synthetic and sequence transactions alerts

Since release 12.4 the RUM Console ships with a new “Synthetic Agent” monitoring dimension for “Enterprise Synthetic and sequence transactions” alerts. This new dimension introduced a number of restrictions on the alert configuration, which I’d like to discuss here along with other restrictions which were already present and may sometimes lead to confusion.

General restrictions

1. Comparison mode is always “Single” for this type of alert since 12.4

2. Baseline source is always “Average baseline” for this type of alert since 12.4

3. Monitoring time range is by default set to “last monitoring interval”, which is configured on CAS and is by default 5 minutes. In order to select a different monitoring time range, a user has to select “Transactions (Enterprise Synthetic)” as Transaction source.

4. When Transaction dimension is selected as monitored dimension without Application dimension, than threshold set on any “user counter” metric is not available.

User counter metrics for this alert type are in fact just one metric “Unique users”. This restriction holds only if “Transactions (RUM)” is selected as Transaction source dimension filter value.

5. Synthetic agent dimension and filter are not available for alerts tracking sequential transactions, that is those with “Transactions (RUM)” selected as Transaction source. Also, the Monitoring time range is always equal to a sampling interval (has a value of “last monitoring time range”)

Baseline restrictions

1. For alerts tracking synthetic transactions (those with “Transactions (Enterprise Synthetic)” selected as Transaction source), a baseline threshold can’t be defined if Synthetic Agent dimension is selected.

However any combination of monitored dimensions except Synthetic Agent is available along with the baseline threshold in such case.

2. For alerts tracking sequential transactions, a baseline threshold is available for the following combinations of dimensions:

Application
Transaction
Application and Transaction
Region
Area
Site
Application and Region or Area or Site
Transaction and Region or Area or Site

3. A baseline threshold is unavailable if a non-default filter value is set for a dimension filter, which corresponding dimension isn’t selected as monitored dimension.

Raffaele T. · Jan 17, 2016 at 11:40 AM

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Janusz! Good article, I believe it'll be very helpful to lot of us!

Ciao, Raffaele

0 · ·

Sylvian L. Raffaele T. · May 23, 2016 at 07:38 AM

Good article to clarify lots of mystery. Thanks Janusz.

I have a question about the email alert time range that need your advise. In my scenario, I have a ESM transaction running every 30 minutes, CAS alert "monitoring time range" set to "15 minutes" and "

Transactions (Enterprise Synthetic)”.

There was an transaction failed at 15:02pm. I received the first alert at 15:11pm, when I click the report link it shows report from 15:05pm to 15:10pm which was empty. Then I received another alert at 15:16pm, the report link shows 15:10pm to 15:15pm which was empty again because the transaction failed only failed at 15:02pm. Two questions need help here:

1. Why the email alert re-generated at 15:16pm?

2. How to make the report link shows the correct time frame which covers the time when transaction failed? 12.3 works well.

Any comment are appreciated.

Thx

Sylvian